4 hours ago, Dialex said:

I think most people here have already addressed the majority of the points you've raised, so I won't go through each of them again.

I do, however, want to share one important piece of information. We recently conducted a community survey and we have the results. While no survey is perfect, the feedback we received doesn't support the picture you're describing. The majority of respondents are genuinely enjoying the product. That doesn't mean there isn't frustration or criticism, we know there is, and we have taken those comments seriously, but it isn't representative of the overall sentiment within our user base.

As for your suggestion that we could or should be doing things differently: if you have the experience and skills to build an alternative and think you can do better, I genuinely encourage you to do so! There's plenty of room in the flight sim community for different ATC solutions, each with its own philosophy and approach. Or maybe you don't have that knowledge, and then I would seriously refrain from making any comment about how our development process should be managed, because you wouldn't clearly have the whole picture about software development and all challenges associated with it.

From our side, what matters most is being transparent with the community. We've tried to be upfront from the very beginning about our development process, our design philosophy, our pricing, and the current state of the software. We know we won't always get everything right, but we've always aimed to communicate honestly about where we are and where we're going. And we have listened to feedback as much as we possibly could, within the limits of our design choices and capacity.

I'm sorry that your experience has led you to feel this way. Your feedback is surely valid but personal. Based on the data we have and the feedback we receive every day, however, your perspective doesn't appear to reflect the experience of the majority of our users.

Sometimes the developers conduct surveys to show that the majority of their customers are enjoying the software. But the real goal should be to improve the product, not to reassure us that most users are satisfied with their work.

I don't like BATC at all. To me, it feels like nothing more than an automated voice droning obvious instructions in your ear. It seems that many people don't actually like study-level airplanes, and I suspect that's why most respondents consider BATC to be decent software.

In my opinion, these surveys are sometimes used as a marketing tool rather than a genuine effort to make the software better. I honestly don't think BATC has much room for improvement anymore. Even after two years of "early access," it still feels like a glorified automated phone voice giving generic instructions. PMDG docet.

The only reason I still use it is to populate my otherwise empty airports with static aircraft.

21 minutes ago, Claudius_ said:

Sometimes the developers conduct surveys to show that the majority of their customers are enjoying the software. But the real goal should be to improve the product, not to reassure us that most users are satisfied with their work.

I feel like you’re missing the broader context here.

If we didn’t genuinely care about feedback, we wouldn’t spend time building a custom survey into our platform. We’d just throw together a Google Form. Or even simpler, we wouldn’t run a survey at all.

Do you really think we need marketing at this point to “sell” BeyondATC? That’s never been the goal. If making money was our priority, there are countless more effective ways to do that than selectively interpreting survey results.

Not only did we publish the survey results, but we also released an experimental update that directly addressed some of the most common concerns users raised. Given that, I don’t see how it’s reasonable to assume the survey had any purpose other than gathering feedback to improve the user experience.

That said, I don’t want to spend my time justifying our philosophy or the way we work. We’ve been around for two years. We have a public Discord server, public patch notes, and a clear history of the areas we’ve focused on since the very first build. People are free to share their opinions anywhere they like, but opinions on forums or social media are anecdotal. Our surveys give us measurable data that helps us make informed decisions.

Whether you choose to trust us is entirely up to you, but I think we’ve consistently demonstrated transparency and honesty with our community from the beginning.

2 minutes ago, Dialex said:

Whether you choose to trust us is entirely up to you, but I think we’ve consistently demonstrated transparency and honesty with our community from the beginning.

It appears that your goal once again is to build a supportive BATC community, but with the underlying aim of making money, rather than improving your software. And yes, I’m well aware that whether to trust you is entirely up to me, thank you for that reminder.

2 hours ago, Claudius_ said:

I don't like BATC at all.

The only reason I still use it is to populate my otherwise empty airports with static aircraft.

You hate it, but use it ????

There are other options to populate you airports.

2 hours ago, Claudius_ said:

It appears that your goal once again is to build a supportive BATC community, but with the underlying aim of making money, rather than improving your software.

W-h-a-t? Look at the changelog - and tell me the software wasn't improved <?>. I don't think BATC costs that much, compared to other [subscription type] addons, so you can't accuse them simply of going for the money. Developers need to be paid for their time. Also - what's wrong with building a supportive community - isn't that what we all want?

The latest "massive update!!!11 we rewrote everything!!!!!" was a another nothingburger. On a visual approach, I still:

1. Received pointless vectors away from my destination

2. Was told to slow to approach speed while on downwind (????)

3. Didn't get handed off to tower

My issue with BATC is they drop these supposed "big updates" and they turn out to do nothing.

4 hours ago, Claudius_ said:

he only reason I still use it is to populate my otherwise empty airports with static aircraft.

what about the ai aircraft thats flying around is that static

8 hours ago, Adamski_NZ said:

W-h-a-t? Look at the changelog - and tell me the software wasn't improved <?>. I don't think BATC costs that much, compared to other [subscription type] addons, so you can't accuse them simply of going for the money. Developers need to be paid for their time. Also - what's wrong with building a supportive community - isn't that what we all want?

He's a troll. Let him do his thing, Adamski. Ignore him until he's gone. Some people don't discuss. They're doing monologues and don't listen. Not worth it.

11 hours ago, Claudius_ said:

It appears that your goal once again is to build a supportive BATC community, but with the underlying aim of making money, rather than improving your software. And yes, I’m well aware that whether to trust you is entirely up to me, thank you for that reminder.

Usually, I’m open-minded and willing to try to understand someone else’s point of view, but I’m having a hard time with this one… 🤔

11 hours ago, Ron Lefebvre said:

You hate it, but use it ????

There are other options to populate you airports.

But then, he would have nothing to complain and be extremely disappointed about 😄

Those who've seen @Claudius_ contributions in the past will see that he begins with a justified point. Then he escalates his emotional stance towards the developer and within 2 or 3 posts, that developer is "just interested in money", "can't fix the product", "hasn't improved at all", etc, etc ...... He loses all sense of balance and perspective and can no longer see any positive points about it - only the thing that he is mad about, that hasn't been addressed yet.

....and that's where the rudeness and obnoxiousness begin.

@Watsi 's summary above perfectly summarises the pointlessness of engaging with him, because (i) he will never reflect nor modify his opinion on anything. There is a solid immovable fixed mindset, and (ii) as he progresses his point, he just gets nastier and ruder to anyone who challenges his cast-iron position; no matter how politely or charitably they might engage with him.

Edited 22 hours ago22 hr by JYW

I didn't follow previous arguments he was in, but I figured as much after the 3rd post.

22 minutes ago, JYW said:

Those who've seen @Claudius_ contributions in the past will see that he begins with a justified point. Then he escalates his emotional stance towards the developer and within 2 or 3 posts, that developer is "just interested in money", "can't fix the product", "hasn't improved at all", etc, etc ......

I genuinely appreciate the acknowledgment of my contributions, both past and present. That said, I think you are incorrectly attributing emotional escalation to my feedback. The real issue is the widespread developer practice of deflecting criticism: PMDG, BATC, Fenix and iFly are particularly guilty of this (though Fenix has gotten much better). They routinely fall back on vague generalizations like 'most users are happy,' dismiss issues with 'we can't reproduce it,' or hide behind 'we've tested it with RL pilots' to avoid taking valid concerns seriously.

1 minute ago, Claudius_ said:

I genuinely appreciate the acknowledgment of my contributions, both past and present. That said, I think you are incorrectly attributing emotional escalation to my feedback. The real issue is the widespread developer practice of deflecting criticism: PMDG, BATC, Fenix and iFly are particularly guilty of this (though Fenix has gotten much better). They routinely fall back on vague generalizations like 'most users are happy,' dismiss issues with 'we can't reproduce it,' or hide behind 'we've tested it with RL pilots' to avoid taking valid concerns seriously.

Then a good place to start would be to follow the support process each developer has in place. If you’re experiencing an issue, we’re more than happy to receive a bug report along with your log files so we can investigate it properly.

As for my honest opinion, I don’t think this discussion is going to lead anywhere. You’ve already made up your mind about who we are and how we work, and you don’t seem willing to acknowledge that the vast majority of users have a different experience. That doesn’t mean those users never encounter bugs or frustrations, or even that there are users that are globally unhappy with it. In fact, the whole purpose of our survey was to identify the most common issues and pain points so we could prioritize improving them. The latest update is the first step in that process.

The conclusion you’ve drawn, that because most users are satisfied, we believe there are no problems, isn’t something we’ve ever remotely said. That’s your interpretation, not our position. We’ve consistently acknowledged that issues exist and have been actively working to address them.

At this point, it feels like you’re dismissing the reality of software development more than we’re making excuses. We do need to reproduce issues before we can fix them. That’s not an excuse, it’s simply how debugging works. Some problems are difficult to reproduce, and those are often equally hard to solve.

If you want to blame us, that’s your choice. It doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been doing our best to improve the software from day one, and we’ll continue to do so. With or without your support.

@Dialex props to you for your professional replies. You can't satisfy everyone all the time especially when they don't understand, or dont want to understand, the complexities involved.

12 minutes ago, Claudius_ said:

Sometimes I think you're acting like your own software: a blind, eyeless voice trying to guide your plane through dangerous virtual skies. That makes your problems unsolvable — and my €30, non-refundable. This isn't a 'bug issue'; it's your software's structure and logic that are flawed, as other more careful users have already pointed out. My only hope now rests on the experimental branch.

😲 Do you have any idea how obnoxious your behavior is? I guess not...

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by Rimshot